Read Sunbathing in Siberia for Free Online

Monday to Friday. Our savior came in the shape of Kostya, a Russian missionary who had travelled the world doing good deeds. He didn’t even want paying, although we bought him a box of chocolates for his kindly efforts.
    The morning of the wedding felt like any other morning. We wore jeans, shirts, new boots, and normal winter coats, and I took a black ushanka just in case it snowed. We caught a taxi as we were worried all the buses might have magically disappeared, and so we arrived in plenty of time. Kostya came by foot and arrived five minutes after us. The wedding ceremony was very simple. We sat in plastic chairs opposite a wooden desk in the same back office where we had registered two days before. A woman in smart casual dress read through the laws and official stuff of marriage; Kostya translated; we said ‘I do’ and it was done. Nastya shed a few tears while I tried to contain my nervous laughter. The certificate, which seemed to have been printed before we arrived, was handed to me, as I was now the ‘head of the family’. We were wished good luck and farewell and left the office no more than fifteen minutes after we had entered.
    Although, legally, we had to use the international wedding court, we could have had another much larger church ceremony afterwards. Most weddings in Krasnoyarsk are lavish affairs, with showy receptions, that finish with a limousine sightseeing tour of the city. Siberian newlyweds simply love posing for the camera and like to have their picture taken near the Yenisei as well as some of the older, Orthodox church buildings. By contrast our wedding had been very modest, to the point that we neglected to take any pictures at all. I had worried that our small ceremony might not have been enough for Nastya, but each time we spoke about it she affirmed that she didn’t care to waste lots of money on one single day, when we had a whole future together to look forward to.
    To celebrate our marriage, Nastya and I had decided that we would locate one of the very few Irish bars in Krasnoyarsk and have a pint of Guinness. What better way is there to celebrate? It took us a few hours to find one and once we did we discovered that it wouldn’t be open until 1 p.m., which left us an hour to kill. Nastya knew of a café conveniently close so we went there for a betrothal breakfast while we waited; this was a mistake. The café, albeit modern, sold the usual type of mush found in most Russian cafés. We ordered mashed potato that was poured out of a machine like a drinks dispenser, and two portions of some kind of meat type thing which was as bland as roasted cardboard. The Irish bar wasn’t much better. Yes it was decked out in green garb with Irish pictures on the walls, but there wasn’t an Irishman in sight; we had to put our coats in the cloakroom (at the time I assumed this was in case we carried weapons, but later I learned it’s standard across Russia), and not only was the pint poured to the little white marker line below the top of the glass, but each pint was a fiver. Still, I will never forget that drink. It was real Guinness, and we were newlyweds enjoying a pint of the good stuff, early on a Friday afternoon, in an Eastern Siberia that was still covered in snow. That one pint really hit the spot, so we collected our coats and went home, where we fell onto the bed and slept for the rest of the afternoon. I woke in the early evening to find Nastya, Nataliya Petrovna, Dima (my new brother-in-law), and several other distant relations preparing food in the kitchen and living room. Now we were going to celebrate Russian-style. In our wedding preparations Nastya and I had completely missed the need to throw a party, let alone invite family over, because we had been consumed with obtaining the right paperwork and getting me to Siberia.
    The impromptu wedding banquet consisted of deer meat, hunted and killed by my now father-in-law Boris, and cooked in a